An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an integrated computer-based system used to manage internal and external resources, such as tangible assets, financial resources, materials, human resources, etc. ERP systems facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside boundaries of an organization and manage connections to outside stakeholders of the organization. Built on a centralized database (e.g., a data warehouse) and typically utilizing a common computing platform, ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise-wide system environment. An ERP system can either reside on a centralized server or be distributed across modular hardware and software units that provide services and communicate on a local area network (LAN). The distributed design allows a business to assemble modules from different vendors without a need for placement of multiple copies of complex and expensive computer systems in areas which will not use their full capacity.
One example of an ERP is a “SAP system,” available from the German software corporation SAP AG. ERP systems, such as SAP, may generate millions of rows of records every day. However, these ERP systems do not enable underlying data (e.g., and data structures) to be exposed to an external data warehouse through a gateway. This makes it difficult to obtain, from the ERP system, newly created data, changed data, or an indication that data has been deleted (e.g., referred to collectively herein as “incremental data”) when incremental data becomes available. Without such up-to-date information, an organization may not be able to make informed decisions or be quickly alerted to changing conditions in the organization, such as through the use of third party analytic software.